Advance Praise for Dynamic Urban Design “Finally, in one book a complete guide to the theory, practice, and potential of urban design by one of Canada’s preeminent urban designers.” —David R. Witty, former dean, School of Architecture, University of Manitoba, Canada “Michael von Hausen has given us a clear and hopeful path to the creation of a sustainable urbanism, one that will be inspiring and instructive to practitioners, students, and all those who are focused on the most fundamental issue of our time.” —Jim Adams, architect and principal, McCann Adams Studio, Austin, Texas “Dynamic Urban Design establishes Michael von Hausen as a sustainable urban design authority. Sharing insights taken from six millennia ... von Hausen articulates a clearly understandable and masterfully illustrated process.” —Kevin Harris, architect and principal, Kevin Harris Architect, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Whether we are practicing urban designers or interested citizens, virtually all of us want to live in communities that are safe, attractive, and healthy. Yet our good intentions face conflicting goals. How are we going to improve community health, reduce crime, and improve mobility in cities while at the same time expanding our cities to accommodate growth? How are we going to do all this with seemingly limited financial resources? How do we do more with less, live within our means, and still create a higher quality of life? The list of challenges is almost endless. Urban design is emerging as a critical interface that brings various professions together to address these challenges and improve our communities. For future human survival and quality of life, the world needs a more inclusive, rigorous, socially inspired, and comprehensive urban design model integrated with sustainable development. This book delivers that model—a reference guide for doing it right.

"For future human survival and quality of life, the world needs a more inclusive, rigorous, socially inspired, and comprehensive urban design model integrated with sustainable development. This book delivers that model ..."--Back cover.

This introduction to the field of urban design offers a comprehensive survey of the processes necessary to implement urban design work, explaining the vocabulary, the rules, the tools, the structures, and the resources in clear and accessible style. Providing a comprehensive framework for understanding urban design principles and strategies, the author argues that urban design is both a process and a collaboration in which the different forces involved are knit together. Moving from the regional scale down to the scale of places, the book examines the goals and strategies of the urban designer from the viewpoints of the private sector, public sector, and community. The text is illustrated throughout with photographs and drawings that make theory and practice relevant and alive.

A globe-trotting, eye-opening exploration of how cities can—and do—make us happier people Charles Montgomery's Happy City will revolutionize the way we think about urban life. After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and tower dwelling an improvement on the car-dependence of sprawl? The award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery finds answers to such questions at the intersection between urban design and the emerging science of happiness, and during an exhilarating journey through some of the world's most dynamic cities. He meets the visionary mayor who introduced a "sexy" lipstick-red bus to ease status anxiety in Bogotá; the architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan hill towns to modern-day New York City; the activist who turned Paris's urban freeways into beaches; and an army of American suburbanites who have transformed their lives by hacking the design of their streets and neighborhoods. Full of rich historical detail and new insights from psychologists and Montgomery's own urban experiments, Happy City is an essential tool for understanding and improving our own communities. The message is as surprising as it is hopeful: by retrofitting our cities for happiness, we can tackle the urgent challenges of our age. The happy city, the green city, and the low-carbon city are the same place, and we can all help build it.

Introducing Urban Design: Interventions and Responses is a new departure in the town planning series under the editorship of Clara Greed. The dynamic new subject and profession of urban design straddles the fields of town planning, architecture, landscape architecture and transport planning. This book recognises that a key feature of modern urban design practice is the ability to integrate a concern with the visual and aesthetic aspects of urban form, with a strong social awareness of the need of user groups, plus a sensitivity to wider environmental and sustainability issues. In this it continues the themes already introduced in earlier volumes, such as the changing nature of the profession, social problems and the means of implementing policy. Written by a team of eminent urban designers, architects and planners under the joint editorship of Clara Greed and Marion Roberts, the book introduces the reader to the subject through a discussion of current issues, approaches and user responses. Introducing Urban Design: Interventions and Responses is an ideal resource for undergraduate courses in town planning, architecture, landscape architecture, estate management and housing studies. It is also suitable as an introductory text for first year diploma and masters programmes in urban design and suitable for RTPI, RICS, CIOH, CIOB, ASI, ISVA and RIBA courses and will be of interest to professional practioners in the urban design field.

Collects essays written on the establishment and cultivation of urban design as a distinct architectural and planning practice.

Re-framing Urban Space: Urban Design for Emerging Hybrid and High-Density Conditions rethinks the role and meaning of urban spaces through current trends and challenges in urban development. In emerging dense, hybrid, complex and dynamic urban conditions, public urban space is not only a precious and contested commodity, but also one of the key vehicles for achieving socially, environmentally and economically sustainable urban living. Past research has been predominantly focused on familiar models of urban space, such as squares, plazas, streets, parks and arcades, without consistent and clear rules on what constitutes good urban space, let alone what constitutes good urban space in ‘high-density context’. Through an innovative and integrative research framework, Re-Framing Urban Space guides the assessment, planning, design and re-design of urban spaces at various stages of the decision-making process, facilitating an understanding of how enduring qualities are expressed and negotiated through design measures in high-density urban environments. This book explores over 50 best practice case studies of recent urban design projects in high-density contexts, including Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo, New York, and Rotterdam. Visually compelling and insightful, Re-Framing Urban Space provides a comprehensive and accessible means to understand the critical properties that shape new urban spaces, illustrating key design components and principles. An invaluable guide to the stages of urban design, planning, policy and decision making, this book is essential reading for urban design and planning professionals, academics and students interested in public spaces within high-density urban development.

An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground—the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative—“sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient”—often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens. Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities’ development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this “urban planners’ dream” created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities’ productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.

'Community Design' focuses on the author's experience and work in Minnesota where a design team of architects, planners, economic and community development practitioners provided planning and design assistance to local communities.

Urban design is a process of establishing a structural order within human settlements; responding to dynamic emergent meanings and functions in a constant state of flux. The planning/design process is complex due to the myriad of ongoing (urban) organizational and structural relationships and contexts. This book reconnects the process with outcomes on the ground, and puts thinking about design back at the heart of what planners do. Mixing accessible theory, practical examples and carefully designed exercises in composition from simple to complex settings, Urban Design is an essential textbook for classrooms and design studios across the full spectrum of planning and urban studies fields. Filled with color illustrations and graphics of excellent projects, it gives students tools to enable them to sketch, draw, design and, above all, think. This new edition remains focused on instructing the student, professional and layperson in the elements and principles of design composition, so that they can diverge from conventional and packaged solutions in pursuit of a meaningful and creative urbanism. This edition builds upon established design principles and encourages the student in creative ways to depart from them as appropriate in dealing with the complexity of culture, space and time dynamics of cities. The book identifies the elements and principles of compositions and explores compositional order and structure as they relate to the meaning and functionality of cities. It discusses new directions and methods, and outlines the importance of both buildings and the open spaces between them.